Ending
by Hiril Elfwraith
Summary: TUE-verse. Valerie finally succeeds. Oneshot. Warning: character death.


A/N: This is a oneshot I came up with a while ago-one of those things that just pops, full-force, into your mind and forces you to write it. XD

"Ready…aim…"

The woman crouched on her hoverboard, a large gun tucked to her body and trained on a black-and-white blur in the sky overhead. Eyes narrowed, she tracked the figure, who seemed as yet unaware of her presence. With skills honed from a decade of battle, she aimed and pulled the trigger, expertly absorbing the recoil as a blast of pink energy shot out.

Her aim was true, and the blur stopped abruptly and immediately began hurtling downward. The woman shouldered the gun and raced through the air, dodging wreckage. She stopped in front of a half-toppled skyscraper, her eyes locked on the figure that hovered there—a tall man, muscular, white flames crowning his head and pulled into a ponytail that flowed down his ragged white cape. She bared her teeth in a snarl and sent off another blast in his direction. It hit him square in his chest, burning the logo that was all remaining of who he once was. The shock slammed him into the destroyed building, fallen by his own handiwork. He let out a howl of pain as his body writhed against the shattered façade of the structure.

He dropped, powerless and flightless, fifty feet to the pavement and impacted hard enough to crack the ground. The woman landed neatly next to him and quickly sent another round of energy into his unguarded back. He thrashed and shuddered as the fuchsia energy attacked his core, another strangled cry tearing free.

Her shadow dropped across his face, and he looked up. His eyes, the color of blood, gleamed as his lips pulled back in a crazed grin, baring his fangs. Brilliant green ectoplasm oozed slowly from his mouth, staining the little patch of white hair on his chin.

"Hello, Valerie," he drawled, his voice a mocking rasp, a bubble of liquid forming and bursting on his lips as he spoke.

Her face was stony. "It's over, Phantom."

He laughed, then coughed painfully, splattering the ground with ectoplasm. Breath rattled wetly in his throat. "What _is_ that thing?" he demanded, nodding toward the gun.

She grinned. "This baby doesn't just disrupt the ecto-signature, it goes right for the core. Much more effective than anything else in the arsenal." She patted the barrel of the gun.

He laughed again, bitterly. "Well,"—he coughed again and squinted up at her, his eyes unfocusing—"it works." His face went white, and he slumped down and vomited green liquid.

She knelt and pressed the cold metal of the gun to his forehead. His crimson eyes met hers. "'S'over, isn't it?" he slurred over the whine of the charging gun, and her eyes gave him all the answer he needed.

He gave her a small and oddly sincere smile. A shaking hand reached up and gently cradled hers, and she stared as he drew it to his lips and pressed a bloody kiss to it. He dropped his hand and she drew hers back, staring at the ghost that had plagued her life for the last ten years, had destroyed everything with unholy glee, had basically brought the apocalypse, and now lay dying before her.

"Goodbye, Valerie," he murmured weakly.

"Goodbye, Phantom," she replied. Part of her wanted to add _"and good riddance"_ like she'd wanted to for so long, but the smug, hate-fueled words stuck in her throat. Their eyes met briefly as she pulled the trigger.

One last convulsion wracked his muscular body and he was still.

Valerie stood and stared at the form as it began to dissolve into emerald liquid. He was still, so very still, stiller than she'd ever seen him…and although she knew what she'd done, had planned and fantasized and longed for years, it still hadn't quite sunk in until that moment.

_Still._ He'd never move again, never bloody his black gloves with the blood of innocents and hunters, never terrorize or rampage. She'd _killed_ him, ended the ghost once and for all, but she felt no jubilation…

She swallowed hard. Something inside her had died with her foe, leaving her with a hollow ache where the hatred and vicious drive had once festered. Her ocean-green eyes gazed at the back of her black glove where he had kissed her, still stained with his ectoplasm. A sigh gusted from her lips, and she pressed the place to her mouth, driven by some throbbing emotion she couldn't name.

Abruptly, she turned from the place and leapt on the jet sled, rocketing into the air and back to FentonWorks, the headquarters within the safe boundary of the ghost shield. She was silent, pale beneath her dark skin, grim but determined. It had to be done. It was done. The nightmare was finally, truly, and utterly _over_…

So why did this feel like such an empty victory…


End file.
